


Homeless

by WeaglesAndBrobeans



Series: ghost stories [2]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Loneliness, Reggie deserves better, Third Wheels, this is just sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:41:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27051343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeaglesAndBrobeans/pseuds/WeaglesAndBrobeans
Summary: For the first time in their friendship, Reggie is feeling like an outsider. He doesn't handle it very well.
Series: ghost stories [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986880
Comments: 18
Kudos: 202





	1. Chapter 1

Being the fifth wheel was new. Before…well, before they died, the three were inseparable. Bobby had his range of girls he’d pick up at shows, but the others were content to have each other. The music was enough, their found family was enough.

Now though, Alex had Willie and Luke had Julie and Reggie. Reggie had all the time in the world to make an attempt at processing the changes he was facing.

He did his best to avoid it at first. He’d write songs in the studio, hours curled on the couch with a notepad and pen in hand. Some days he’d blaze through with pages of lyrics. Other days he’d just hold it in his hands, mind wandering. Looking back over the ever-increasingly melancholic words scrawled across the pages, Reggie realized this wasn’t helping. So he began to follow Ray around the house.

Ray was sad too. He’d putt around and work on different projects, but the tunes he’d whistle were low and nostalgic. Sometimes he’d pause and suck in a stuttering breath before slapping his thighs decisively and muttering aloud to himself, “that’s enough of that”.

Julie’s dad proved to be a pretty damn good listener. Mostly because he didn’t know Reggie was even there. It gave Reggie time to really think about his words without someone else finding the need to criticize him or jump in with thoughts of their own. Reggie liked to imagine that Ray would be a good listener even if he could see and hear the young ghost.

Back when they were Lifers, Reggie spent every waking moment with Alex and Luke. Especially once, one by one, they’d found their homes unsafe, unwelcoming, unsupportive. Reggie realized by 16 that Sunset Curve _was_ his home. Not his bass. Not the studio. Certainly not his beachside house or the bitter couple within it. The three would busk together, grab cheap street eats together, perform together, study together, rehearse together, cuddle together. His hopes and dreams were tied to those two. Everything he enjoyed and looked forward to always came back to those two.

So now as he sat in their empty studio, he felt off kilter. Luke liked to follow Julie around during her school day and pester her. More like flirt, but he wouldn’t admit it. Alex spent most days wandering around with Willie, trying to catch up on all they’d missed in the past 25 years. Which left Reggie. And he’d been left before, but never by Alex and Luke.

This new dynamic was weird. A hollowness had begun to settle deep in his stomach. An ache for the times gone past, a yearning to have his friends back. Then the guilt would hit. He should be _happy_ for his brothers. He wanted to be able to make rehearsals a time of letting loose and enjoying his friends. He should be able to soak up every chance he got to be near them. But the hollow feeling latched onto him and even in their presence, he couldn’t shake it off.

Reggie _poofed!_ into the studio after a day of wandering the streets of Hollywood on his own. Glancing up, he froze finding three sets of eyes boring into him.

“Dude where have you been?” exclaimed Luke, hands on his hips like some put upon mother figure. Reggie figured it was Luke being his overzealous self, but glancing to Alex and then Julie, he realized the three were clearly distressed.

Alex’s eyes were wide and slightly frantic, pouted lips downturned as he waited for Reggie’s explanation. Julie too, sat hunched over her piano with her arms tucked into her sides and a wounded expression in her features.

Maybe ‘ _guys chill!’_ wasn’t the best response when his friends looked so worried, but the hollowness had begun to harden and if the others could disappear for hours then so could he.

“Chill?” repeated Alex. “Chill? Are you kidding me Reggie?”

The blonde had stood from his drum set to slam his sticks on a nearby table. “You just take off without telling anyone where you’re going or what you’re doing? You just vanish!” Pacing now, hands shaking, Alex continued his rant without letting Reggie get a word in edgewise. “We don’t know how this ghost thing works Reggie! Anything could have happened to you! We thought. We thought you crossed over or ran into Caleb! Do you have any idea how worried we were?”

The others were nodding along with each of these points, but a fire was spreading in the bassist’s stomach. Finally, he was angry enough to cut in.

“So you guys can disappear for hours each day but I don’t get to have a life of my own? What do I have to go wrangle up a significant other in order to spend an afternoon off of this godforsaken property? And tell you where I am? Alex we _never_ know where you get off to with Willie. Never!”

The youngest of the trio never raised his voice. Not really. So the explosion of emotion had silenced the room. Alex’s hands were still shaking, but he’d clamped his mouth shut. Julie looked on the verge of tears.

“You’ve been gone for three days Reg.”

Reggie spun towards Luke at the sound of his hoarse voice. There’s no way that’s possible. But thinking back, he could recall the sunsets, the night walks. Something about not needing sleep had tuned him out to what that _meant._

Yet before he could apologize, a poisonous thought bit him.

“So having band rehearsal was the best way to find me. Cool.”

With that he _poofed!_ out. He had no interest in their explanation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry! A part two is coming.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys have some talking to do.

Like always, when he was distracted or upset, Reggie landed on the beach. Nothing like twisting a knife that was already embedded in his chest. Staring at where his old house once stood, Reggie felt hot tears spill over his cheeks.

He turned and wandered away from the sand and towards the city. The lump in his throat only grew as he watched a couple take a photo together. Watched a family of three smile endearingly as a little boy bounced and requested ice cream.

For hours, Reggie roamed as the vicious thoughts swirled red-hot in his mind. It wasn’t fair. After years of Alex and Luke working to convince him he wasn’t worthless, that he deserved love, they do him like this?

Hunched in on himself, and vibrating with tension, Reggie paused to look down at a man sitting on the side of the road. The man was bundled in a scratchy blanket, hair matted, eyes tired. He held a crudely formed sign that stated in bold sharpie ‘Homeless, anything helps’.

“Me too bud,” Reggie hiccupped. “Me too.”

An hour or so had flitted past by the time Luke found him outside the Orpheum. Which, to be sitting back on that sign wasn’t exactly hiding. Reggie flinched away, but Luke quickly reached out and snatched his wrist.

“Dude please. Wait,” he begged. Reggie froze, gnawing on his lip before glancing over at his friend.

Luke’s eyes were red-rimmed. He’d clearly been crying. And it was clearly Reggie’s fault.

It felt like Reggie couldn’t handle anything right these days. Hurting the boys was never what he wanted. But it didn’t stop him from lashing out and leaving them with no space to explain themselves.

“We looked,” Luke whispered roughly. “For like two and half days we looked. We thought you were gone. We thought we lost you. And you _know_ how I process things. So we went to the studio and I was. I was writing your song. But then there you were, but you were hurting and I don’t know what we did Reg but, I’m so, so sorry.”

Luke was always sincere. Authenticity oozed out of him. He didn’t have to work up an attitude of hype or excitement. It just came. It’s who he was. And when he was angry, he raged. And when he was sad, well. He wore it full and well for everyone to see. A breeze picked up his bangs and his eyes glistened with unshed tears, face twisted in anguish.

Reggie decided to match the vulnerability.

“I was nine when I first remember them fighting. I hid in my room for two days and neither checked on me. I’d never been claustrophobic before that week.”

Luke glanced over, a mixture of empathy and surprise on his face. Reggie had always hated small or crowded spaces. He always stood near exits. For as long as Luke has known him he’s hated anything that made him feel remotely stuck. The dark room made Alex cry, but it made Reggie shutdown completely.

“You and Alex. You were. You _are_ , everything. And it didn’t take long for you to feel like home. But lately, waiting around in the studio or the house, I’ve felt like the walls are closing in. I feel like I’m always just waiting for one of you to come back. But when you do, it feels like… I dunno,” he paused. He didn’t want to say it. But at this point he probably should. “I’ve been really lonely Luke.”

The last confession came out as a whisper. “It’s not fair to you,” Reggie agonized. “But it’s how I feel.”

Luke pulled his feet up, resting his chin on his knees for a moment, before turning so his cheek smooshed there and his eyes settled on Reggie. “I think we need Alex for this chat huh?”

Unease swirled through Reggie, though he knew Luke was right. Better to get it all out at once.

“We were gonna meet back up at Julie’s. Do you wanna come or do you wanna wait here while I go get him?”

Reggie felt a damn break in his chest. Luke giving him the freedom to choose was an olive branch on a silver platter. He was letting Reggie take the lead and it was something he hadn’t realized until this moment how badly he needed it.

“I’ll come with you I think,” he offered.

When the two _poofed!_ into the studio, they found Alex fully on his anxiety runway. Pulling at his soft blonde hair, worrying at his bottom lip, he was the picture of stress. Hearing the arrival of the two, he spun around. “Did you find-,” he trailed off, eyes meeting Reggie’s.

Seeing the distress of his friends, cut at the youngest. But it didn’t add up. The picture his mind had been painting for the past few weeks was one where he didn’t really matter. They had their people. Surely, they didn’t really need him too.

“I don’t get it,” Reggie confessed, plopping down on the couch, hands clasped between his knees. “It _really_ felt like you guys were moving on. But now. I don’t know if you guys are greedy or if I’m stupid.”

Alex and Luke bookended him on the couch, Luke pressed closely thigh to thigh and Alex sitting with his back to the arm, both feet tucking under the Bassist’s other leg.

“Well, I have an opinion on that one, but I’m sure you don’t want to hear it,” Alex commented in that perfectly dry manner of his. Reggie glanced his way and rolled his eyes.

An elbow pushed at his ribs and Luke peered over with wide glassy eyes. “Are you gonna tell him what you told me?”

The question brought the brevity of Alex’s quip crashing down. All three tensed together.

“I just. I feel selfish saying this, but,” he trailed off to take a deep breath. Reggie’s eyes were planted firmly on his hands where they lay clutched together. He felt the pressure of calloused fingers pinching at the base of his neck before reaching up to scritch in his hair. The tiniest bit of tension released.

“You guys have always been home to me. And lately I’ve kind of felt. Well. Homeless.”

“Oh Reggie,” breathed Alex, warm hands resting on Reggie’s forearm. “That’s not selfish at all.”

“I can’t ask you to make me your priority though,” Reggie insisted, frustration lacing his tone. “That’s not right.”

He felt Alex tapping a rhythm, on his arm and Luke still playing with his hair. For the first time in so long he felt warm and seen. Clinching his eyes shut he willed the hot tears to just stay put, but they wouldn’t listen. Soon he curled forward, shoulders shaking with sob after sob.

His boys didn’t hesitate to wrap around him, letting him know they were present and near.

Neither argued his point or spoke at all until the tears settled. But when he finally came up for a deep breath and rubbed at his weary eyes, Luke blindsided him with a question.

“Have you ever felt like you had to pick between Alex and I?”

Affronted, the raven-haired boy looked at first Luke then Alex with wide eyes. “I would never!”

“So, by that line of thinking. Can Alex love you and Willie?”

Reggie felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. All this time, he was sure they were leaving him behind, when all along he was the _only_ one viewing it that way. A soft “oh,” fell from his lips.

“Guys I’ve been so dumb,” Reggie admitted, but Alex shook his head.

“No, of course not. We _promised_ to always be there for you, but neither of us actually talked to you about all these changes. That wasn’t fair to you,” insisted the drummer.

Luke nodded in agreement. “We never should have let you feel abandoned Reg. That’s on us. We _want_ you to feel at home with us. And constantly being ditched and put off isn’t gonna accomplish that. We love you.”

Reggie finally met Luke’s eyes at that. He saw the sincerity and his heart swelled so much it hurt. “I love you guys too,” he responded before tipping forward to duck his head into Luke’s neck for a proper cuddle. He felt Alex blanket himself along his back, arms wrapped around both Reggie and Luke.

Moving forward, the boys planned consistent bro-dates (as Julie and Willie started dubbing them). Alex and Luke consistently checked in on Reggie and worked to make sure he felt seen and safe. To make sure he felt at home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, the sweet taste of a fairytale finish.


End file.
